5 Ways To Fight Anxiety Pastor Steven Furtick -

Five ways we create our own storms.

Sometimes we see some waves are God ordained in our lives,

but some waves or waves we make.

And sometimes we create our own anxiety.

And then we ask God for peace, But how can

he give you peace in a situation that you're currently creating?

And So I got five things for you, just real quick.

I won't take long on them. But number one, often

we create anxiety and waves in our lives with the.

Words that we speak. Just write that down words words.

Have you ever made unnecessary waves with your words? Words

that you speak out of anger that you then have

to go back and fix takes a week, two weeks,

three weeks, words of doubt, words of some of you.

Just you frame your day with the wrong words, and

then you're disappointed.

With the world that you've built. But your world is

created by your words.

And sometimes we make waves, you know, we create choppy

conditions in the morning, just by the way we get

up talking another My grandmother used to say this phrase

all the time. She say, y'all about to worry me

to death. And she'd say it about anything. You know,

the TV's too loud, Turn that TV down, y'all about

to worry me to death about to worry me to death.

And she was a wonderful lady. But you know what,

as a result of her saying all the time, you're

about to worry me to death, she was worried a

lot because she said she wanted to be worried. We

read a teaching one time in a book that said,

after anything you say in your life, don't say it

if you can't follow it with this phrase. And that's

just the way I want it. And that's just the

way I want it. So try it out on the

things you say. Y'all about to worry me to death.

And that's just the way I want it. Now I'm

just running around like chicken with my head cut off.

I'm so stressed out, And that's just the way I

want it. You got your own phrases, But the words

we speak create waves of anxiety.

Check your words. Number two. Your approach.

Sometimes it's not what we're going through, it's the way

we're going through.

What we're going through.

Some of us live with no margin, and so we're

always nervous.

It's our approach.

Anxious about money because we spend too much and don't

make enough.

No margin.

It's your approach you start your morning frustrated with people

in traffic. You know there's going to be traffic. You've

never adjusted the time that you get up and leave

your house. Now you're wondering why your job is so stressful.

Your job is not stressful.

The way you got to your job was stressful because

of your approach. I'm gonna help a student your class

is not stressful. The fact that you knew about the

assignment for three weeks before you thought to look it up.

It's the approach that made it stressed.

She just so mean. She's not mean.

You're just a procrastinator. You're making your own waves. Cannot

can't a parent back me up in house?

That's the second one.

The wrong voices.

The wrong voices can create unnecessary and needless ways and

anxiety in our lives, can't they.

Man, If you check the.

News or your Twitter feed on your phone before even

getting up to use the bathroom in.

The morning, and you wonder why the outlook.

On life that you have is so dark, I think

twenty four to seven news stations and news is one

of the worst things that ever happened to our peace

of mind as people. No offense to the media, no

offense to a journalist.

But I mean, I was reading through just some headlines

the other day.

Do you really need to understand the dynamics of every disease?

Like every disease?

Do you really need to understand the dynamics of every

inflict in all these countries that you can pronounce?

Need to meditate? No wonder you're marm nataid.

You're marinating in the wrong reports, the wrong voices. They'll

come in and tell me from time to time about

a problem in.

The church, and when they get to a certain point.

I'll say, thanks, that's all I need to know what

am I doing. I need good information to make a

good decision, but I don't need so much information that

it clouds my outlook. So I can't let the wrong

voices just keep on playing.

Keep on going.

And then they said this, and then they did that,

and they might do that, and it could be that.

You know, at some point, you just got to say, I'm.

Creating waves by all.

The voices I'm listening to.

I listen to depression, I watch depression. The people I

hang around are depressing. I'm making my own waves. Hello, Hello, Hello.

Our expectations can create waves.

Sometimes you go out in your life, and the anxiety

that you feel is the result of the expectations of

others that you created by not being willing to manage

your own energy. Sometimes the anxiety we feel is because

we get up in the morning and we don't expect

any battles that day, and so we feel like it's

a surprise attack when something hits us wrong. Why are

you surprised? He said, put on the full armor of God.

That suggests you're going to be in a fight, he said,

Take up the helmet, he said, take up the shield,

he said, take up the sword. He said, You've got

to get dressed for battle when you get up in

the morning. Don't be surprised. You need to learn to

expect some storms. I think the fact that it's unexpected

is often the reason it's so difficult. And then there's

the master wave maker in our souls. It's called shame.

Shame, shame. You walk around.

Anxious because you're hiding stuff, and you wonder when are

they going to find out about my secret? Or maybe

because you're tormented by something that God already forgave. See,

there's a difference between conviction and shame. Conviction is good

it shows you what to fix, and it gives you

God's power to help fix it. Shame tells you that

because of what you did, who you are is now

fundamentally changed. And it makes you walk around paranoid, and

it makes you walk around feeling helpless, and it makes

you walk around feeling like people don't love you who

do love you, and people are judging you that aren't

judging you.

And you got to learn where to take your shame

or it'll.

Just rock you.

Waves and they wake Jesus up and they say, don't

you see the waves?

Don't you care if we die? So Verse thirty nine.

Jesus got up, rebuke the wind and said to the waves, quiet,

be still.

We got up and he said quiet, be still three words.

Then the wind died now and it was completely calm.

And he said to his disciples, why are you so afraid?

Don't you know that when I tell you we're going

to the other side, We're.

Gonna get to the other side.

Don't you know that I command the wind and the waves?

And see they didn't yet.

They hadn't seen enough yet, hadn't experienced enough yet. But

after you've been through a few storms, it's interesting what

you learn?

Do you still look at it?

Have no.

Faith?

And then verse forty one, it says they were terrified

and asked each other who is his?

Even the wind and the waves obeyha.

If you thought they were scared of the storm, they

really freaked out when they found out that with three

words he could shut it off like a shower head.

WHOA.

So I want.

I want to suggest something to you today about the

storms of anxiety in your life and the waves and

the winds that are blowing in your life. Because man,

the winds will blow, they will blow absolutely, and the

waves will break.

And they will crash, no doubt about it.

And in those times when Jesus is sleeping in the

stern and he doesn't take action, and he doesn't fix

your situation, it can be easy to deduce what the

disciples to do. We're gonna die and God doesn't even care.

Start playing it out all the way to the end. Man,

this is how I'm gonna die, right here, This is

how it's going to end, right here. I'm never gonna

get another job, never gonna have a bet. Slim, You're

anxious for.

Nothing because they eventually got to the other side.

Yeah, and see I wonder all we why would Jesus

send him into a storm, just like we wonder in

our lives, why doesn't God do more about the chaos

and our world? Why does any fix situations before they

get that bad. We celebrate when God heals somebody of cancer,

but silently we wonder why did they have to have

cancer to begin with? We celebrate when somebody's kid comes

back to God, but we wonder, then, why did God

let the kid wander away?

To begin with?

We celebrate that somebody went to heaven, but we wonder

why did God have to make it so that.

People die and we feel pain and sorrow?

Don't you care? And Jesus was upset about that?

You know what, I don't think he was upset that

they woke him up. I think they were supposed to

wake him up. I think he wanted them to.

Go wake him up.

I do.

I think it's the way they.

Woke him up that bothered him.

See, because they woke him up thinking you must not care.

You don't care, he said in Philippians four six. Didn't

he in everything make your request known to God. You're

supposed to ask God. You're supposed to go down to

the stern and say, Lord, I need a little help

right now.

Lord, this doesn't feel good. God is pushing against me.

God is getting cloudy, and I don't know what to think,

and the sky's growing black.

Would you help me?

Lord?

Would you come?

Lord?

But don't assume he doesn't care. Don't assume that, see.

Because I believe you don't have to take this view

if you don't want to.

I believe that Jesus put him in the storm not

to test them, but to teach them. I can explain. See,

Jesus wasn't gonna be with them forever. We don't have

Jesus in physical form. We have the spirit of God

inside of us as believers, but we don't have Jesus

in our boat.

What a cool picture. Just like Jesus was in the stern.

The spirit is inside of you, but we don't have

Jesus anymore in physical form in our boat. And so

I think Jesus when he stood up and he said quiet,

be still, and the wind in the waves died down,

you know what I think he was doing. I think

he was using the wind in the waves like a

whiteboard to draw a lesson plan for the disciples.

Follow me, follow me, follow me, because.

The real waves that take you down in your life

are not the ones out there, they're the ones in here.

And see, you think it's the circumstances making you anxious,

it's not. You think it's the other person's reactions.

It's how do I know this? James, Chapter one, verse six. James,

Chapter one, verse six.

He says, when you ask God, you must believe and

not doubt. Now watch what doubt does. Watch what doubt does,

because the one who doubts is like a You see it,

like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by

the when.

Ah, that's why God lets me experience winds and waves

in my life, so he can teach me to calm

the wind.

And the waves within. See, the real waves are within, and.

You'll never have peace until you learn how to speak

peace to the waves within. So Jesus said, watch this,

He said, be still, and the waves shut up.

And he said, now it's your turn.

What I just did to the sea, I want you

to do to your anxious heart.

And the next time, the winds of what if start blowing,

and the winds of imaginary scenarios and negative emotions start

blowing I want you to get up and wake up

your faith from the start of the ship and get

out and hold up your hand and say quiet, be still,

the waves within come on. I'm pretty about the waves within, Gus.

If you'll learn how to calm the.

Waves within, you can ride the waves without whoo.

I've clowned out that if you learn how to calm.

The waves within, is about the atmosphere of your heart,

the waves within, the waves within. You think the problem

is that God won't calm the waves without the real

problem is you haven't learned to calm the waves within.

And we learn how to be peace speakers to our

own souls. So I thought it was random when the

order of this stuff, because because Jesus March chapter four,

he's talking about the sower and the soils, and then

we go straight into the storm. And I couldn't figure

out why Mark edited those two together. But I realized

that both are about atmosphere. Every heart has an atmosphere.

I wonder today, what is the atmosphere of your heart?

Can I tell you that nothing good develops in an

atmosphere of anxiety?

Nothing?

And Jesus said, whether you're thinking about a farmer and

a soil, that's the atmosphere of the earth or a

storm in the sky.

You got to learn how to take command of.

The atmosphere of your heart, because here's what's happening.

You're creating an atmosphere of anxiety all around you because

there's an atmosphere of anxiety within you. You're taking it

out on people, and you're frustrated with people, and you're

short with people, and you're withdrawn from people, and you're

blaming people.

But you got to get up and wake up your faith.

Peter Jesus said, you see what I did.

Now you do it?

Speak, speak, awaken, You're brave within.

So here's what I do. You want know what I do?

You want to know what I do?

Check us own when the waves start in my life.

First thing I do I breathe physically. Some of you

other are like, yes, the breath of God. No, no,

just I physically breathe.

Do it now.

You feel it to do it again? Do it again.

They've suggested that the reason the Hebrew name of God

is Yahweh is because the very name sounds like a breath, Yahweh,

so that when you breathe, every breath is a prayer.

Reminding you that he's inside of you, sustaining. Just here

comes the ways. But I know how to breathe.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So breathe

in his grace, and then I can.

Breathe.

Thou breathe, breathe the breathe, breathe.

And then I remember, Yeah, I remember that he told

me we're going to the other side. I remember that,

like he started this. I tell God all the time

that you started this.

And so I remember, Oh, like David did when he

was standing before Goliath. Wait a minute, just like the

lion and the bear, God's about to take this joker

down to breathe. I remember, trigger something in your mind

that reminds you of the faithfulness of God.

Watch the waves die down.

Yeah, And then I asked, he said, make your request

unto God.

Lord, will you help me here? I'm up on a

choppy See, I just got a report about my mother's health. Lord,

they just did that thing again that you know sends

me off in that direction.

Help Lord.

You don't have to say a lot sometimes, just help Lord.

You hear you.

With thanksgiving though, thank you Lord, now help please, thank you, please,

thank you, Please get in that.

Rhythm of asking, asking, It'll be given to you.

Seeking, you'll find knocking the door will be open.

I ask, and I.

Visualize, because the storms can rent their visibility, can't they

and cause you to lose sight of everything God's put

around you, and you can't see anything but what's flashing.

Right in front of you. So I ask, and then

I open the eyes of my heart and I.

Try to get an awareness of Hey, look God is here. Hey,

Look there is strength. Hey, look I am standing. Hey

look there is help. Hey, I see you now, Lord,

I have opened the eyes.

Of my heart.

And then you got to elevate. You gotta elevate. I

found out that you're gonna love this. If you're a nerd.

Atmospheric pressure gets less as elevation increases. Think about that,

spiritually speaking. Think about that spiritually speaking. Some hangs heavy

over your life, and you can't make what's hanging over

you less heavy.

But you can get up higher in your perspective if

you will elevate and worship God and lift your hands

and begin to praise Him.

In the storm.

So when the waves come, I gotta what's that? I

got a cheat sheet? Did y'all see this? I got, Oh,

the words.

And the.

Approach and the voices when we.

Talked about these, just like twenty five minutes ago, and

the expectations.

And the shame. That's the waves. When the waves come,

you didn't know I was smelling anything. I snuck it in.

I'm tricky. When the waves come home.

I need to check this wave and see if I

made it or if God made it. Okay, okay, here.

Comes the wave.

But watch this.

Just as soon as the wave comes, breathe, remember, ask, visualize, elevate.

Oh that's the brave. Also come here, come here to

you eet hold my mind so so so.

Here it is in the series.

When the waves come, because they will.

Get your brave, start up in your spirit and wake

up your faith in the stern of the ship. And

when the waves come, because they will. Here comes fear,

Here comes fanic, Here comes stress, Here comes embarrassment. Here

come words, Here come actions, Here come voices, Here come expectations.

Here go say But here comes.

Prey, and my God hast in me the thread of life,

and his spirit is stronger than any starm. I push

it back ways. Come on, let's your hands, Let your hand.

Worship pushes back ways left the wind blow, there's a

stronger winds.

Cold worship elevates your breaks.

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